I love Scroobius Pip. Mainly for the fact that a guy who has quite a pronounced stutter decides to take on the following 4 occupations: rapper, performance poet, actor and interviewer. All of which require him to speak to a large audience. That can help with your rehab inspiration Anders.

He is a big comics fan.

Also he has some great tunes (with Dan's contribution of course) and lyrics. I like this video a lot, it features projectile glitter vomiting:

I love Scroobius Pip. Mainly for the fact that a guy who has quite a pronounced stutter decides to take on the following 4 occupations: rapper, performance poet, actor and interviewer. All of which require him to speak to a large audience. That can help with your rehab inspiration Anders.

He is a big comics fan.

Also he has some great tunes (with Dan's contribution of course) and lyrics. I like this video a lot, it features projectile glitter vomiting:

He was good as a supporting character in the lived series The Bastard Executioner. He also has a role in the new series Taboo with Tom Hardy.

I love Scroobius Pip. Mainly for the fact that a guy who has quite a pronounced stutter decides to take on the following 4 occupations: rapper, performance poet, actor and interviewer. All of which require him to speak to a large audience. That can help with your rehab inspiration Anders.

It's Favourite Album Friday #2! Today I shall mostly be listening to Deep Purple Live in Long Beach 1971.

Probably the best of Deep Purple live albums. It's a short show only four songs lasting 70 minutes in total, but these are the best versions of these songs you could wish for, everybody at the top of their game and nobody sick of being in the band yet. Child In Time longer than usual (20 minutes), Mandrake Root probably slightly shorter than usual (27 minutes) but perfectly structured, nobody loses their way in the middle, and it works much better as a jam vehicle than Space Truckin', which replaced it in later sets (e.g. on Made in Japan). If I had to recommend one Deep Purple album to anyone new to the band... well, it wouldn't this one, but that's beside the point, this is the perfect fans album.

Treznor promised us new NIN in 2016, and this 5-track EP - the first studio EP in the catalogue since Broken in 1991 - snuck in just before Christmas. Longtime collaborator Atticus Ross has been promoted to an actual band member, and there's been some experimentation with the sound!

While this is unmistakably a Nine Inch Nails release, most of the songs here have a more raw, muscular sound to them - evoking but not emulating percussion-heavy industrial noise acts like Pigface or Einstürzende Neubauten, and even a little bit of Skinny Puppy's soundscapes (but not a blatant lift like when NIN sampled Dig It for Down In It). Here the vocals and guitars are brought down in the mix and become part of the traditional NIN wall of sound, with a lot more processing brought to the vocals to the point where they almost sound like an instrument in the same way Bill Leeb does in Front Line Assembly.

As well as Atticus Ross' contributions to the EP, there's guest appearances on three of the tracks from past Reznor collaborators- Dave Grohl drums on one, Dave Navarro plays guitar on another, and DaveMariqueen Maandig provides backing vocals on a third. Navarro and Maandig suffer(?) from the EP's sound, their contributions are far, far down in the mix to the point I barely noticed Navarro's guitars on Burning Bright (Field on Fire) until I listened to the EP with headphones for the first time.

As I said above, the EP remains unmistakably NIN even with the changes - the traditional synth sounds are still there, and Reznor's vocal stylings are instantly recognisable. A lot of critics felt that the band had been getting stale between Ghosts I-IV, The Slip and Hesitation Marks, and this shakeup has been well-recieved. I've listened to the whole thing through a few times now and really enjoyed it, but there's a hell of a lot more to unpack in there. A full-length album to this level of quality would be a fine thing indeed.

The Manics have released two albums since "Postcards from a young man" (their tenth), from which the below single is taken - while it's not their best album or my favourite, I re-listened to it in full today and it's probably their most consistent and accessible - I wasn't tempted to skip any songs which doesn't apply to many albums by any act for me.

At the time of its release Nicky Wire described at as the band's final attempt at mass communication - big, anthemic songs, with purpose - it ticks all the boxes but didn't really translate into huge sales.

This was the lead single and opening track, and it's another pop masterpiece from James Dean Bradfield - huge chorus, those great strings, and cool couplets with vague lyrics.